


Journeying onwards

by mesmiranda



Category: The Forbidden Kingdom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 20:05:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mesmiranda/pseuds/mesmiranda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story of Old Hop and the Monkey King, set after the events of the movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Journeying onwards

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jheen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jheen/gifts).



> It's been a little while since I've seen The Forbidden Kingdom (though I highly enjoyed it)--I hope this is okay! Happy holidays and an awesome New Year :)

The carving is about three inches tall and made out of soapstone. Buddha sits with his hands folded in his lap and an even expression, the corner of one mouth twitching up, eyes heavy-lidded and distant. Hop can't even remember where he got it now; it's been with him--in his pocket or in his suitcase, or wrapped up in one of his shirts and carried under his arm--for as long as he cares to think back.

The first time he had a census form mailed to him from the U.S. government, there was a blank box for him to fill out his religion. It took him a long moment, with the pen in his hand hovering over the paper, to remember to write down 'Buddhism' in the little square. Careful felt tip scratches, painstaking English letters.

It has nothing to do with the statuette he carries with him. All he remembers about finding the carving was that he was drunk, and the expression reminded him of the Silent Monk.

Every morning he has the same routine, a rhythm that eases his days: he gets up and makes breakfast, then shaves and brushes his teeth in front of the bathroom mirror (it always manages to be dingy and clouded over even when he's wiped it down), and stages an epic war between the hairbrush and his head.

He walks down to the store with his newspaper tucked under his arm and opens it up, unlocking the door and flicking on the lights. There's a kettle in the back where he makes his first cup of tea of the day, settling behind the counter. He doesn't get drunk anymore ever since the doctors started counting his wrinkles and giving him uneasy looks; there's a bottle of imported sanhua jiu hidden under the kitchen sink he got as a New Year's gift. The one time he uncorked it, he'd woken up early one June morning and turned on the radio automatically to hear news about the protest.

(He'd sunk back into his chair, slumped over like he'd had his head slammed against something hard, breathing deep and reeling. The voice on the radio had come and gone distantly, the noise unintelligible. Protesters running away and being shot in the back. Students hauled out of buses and beaten with heavy sticks. One reporter had said he saw people being crushed under the treads of oncoming tanks.

One big glass, then he'd filled up a second before pouring it down the drain. His throat had felt raw the entire day and he'd shuffled around like an old man, feeling age aching in his bones for the first time in a long while.)

The package of incense sticks sitting by the Buddha is almost empty; he needs to pick some more up after work. Every morning, the last thing he does is light a stick, put it in the holder, and sit quietly with the carving in front of him until the stick is burned out. He mutters and grumbles to the carving during the day, dumping papers and packages over it, treating it with the proper disrespect. But in this moment, he stays silent and watches the serene expression on the Buddha's face.

Then Mr. Zhu the butcher bangs on the shutters of his windows to get them open, spitting and cursing, and Wùjìng parks in the back to get to his noodle shop, and the day begins again.

-

Outside that day, around noon, a man climbs up from the subway station and dusts off his suit jacket. He's carrying a Blackberry and carrying an expensive laptop bag, and his suit is perfectly tailored--undoubtedly some designer make. It's probably why he seems so concerned about picking a few stray hairs off his lapel, flicking them off; one he holds up and blows away from between his pinched fingers. It disappears in the sky and he walks on to disappear into the crowds.

Several yards away, a woman picking up a basket of strawberries from a grocery stall turns around and nearly bumps into a man carrying a stack of flyers. "Sorry, sorry," they apologize in hurried unison, the man ducking around her and heading inside with his flyers clutched to his chest. She never really gets a good look at his face, shrugs it off and soon forgets about it.

-

When Hop unlocks the store the next morning, there's a flyer plastered to the door which he rips down with a noise of disgust. They're holding a community dragon dance this year for the New Year party, fireworks and cakes, and he crumples up the paper and tosses it in the trashcan as he steps inside the store.

Most days Jason brings his homework to the store while Hop makes tea in the back. Occasionally he'll run out to the grocery store for him--milk, sugar, bottles of blue cleaning spray. He sits behind the counter, with his backpack tucked under his feet, and Hop wipes down the counters while he balances his math textbook and his notes on his knees.

"Some kids in school were talking about Lupo and how he got sentenced," he mentions that day, over a copy of The Great Gatsby covered in sticky notes. He's saving up money for a laptop and writing everything in short, gnarled cursive; he still speaks perfect Mandarin to Hop, without a trace of an accent. Liang's parents were startled when she brought him home and he greeted them with a polite "_nĭ hăo_".

"Go on." Hop turns over the page of the newspaper, raising his eyebrows.

Jason shrugs a shoulder, looking awkward. "Well, you know the other guys that got off, they're back in school, right? So they're still beating up the younger kids and setting fire to stuff on school grounds. Like, one of the guys actually got caught with a switchblade in his bag, and he got suspended and he's probably going to drop out soon, but they're still doing the same sh--um, stuff."

"_Pì huà_," Hop supplies helpfully and watches Jason go beet red, choking a bit. He's not sure where this is going, feels uneasiness hunch over his shoulders. "Did you say anything to them?"

"No. I mean--" Jason gestures helplessly. "I know there's always a guy like Lupo, but some of those kids were recruited. They went around the school saying stuff like, do this for us or I'll smash your head in, or, do this and I'll give you twenty bucks. They're not even bad people, if they just said _no_\--" He breaks off to take the cup Hop hands to him and adds about thirteen metric tons of sugar. Hop has to suppress a snort. "There's just gotta be a way to do something."

Hop stays silent, pouring his own tea, but that night as he's flicking the lights off and locking the doors he grouses aloud. "He wants to be a hero," he tells the carving on the shelf, who gives him that placid unblinking look. "Whatever happens, this is all your fault."

There's a flyer on the telephone pole nearby when he sets the alarm and steps outside. He ignores it and makes his way home.

-

Over the next few days he keeps turning around while walking down the street, leaning over to stare out the window, shading his eyes to peer down the sidewalk. There are little flickers of gold at the edge of his vision, always just out of sight, but once he turns to look there's nothing--only the regular people walking by.

It sets his teeth on edge, and at first he thinks of Lupo and his boys and the gunshot wound that still aches at night. But it's more than that, it's something he's felt before, and he's cleaning out the kettle when it hits him.

Before his journey with the Seeker, he'd developed the survival instinct of being as funny, drunken, and harmless as possible; a bottle in his hand worked better than a sword, with the benefit of being in a semi-permanent state of pleasantly drunk. But the first time they'd walked side by side, while Jason and Golden Sparrow had rode on ahead, he'd walked beside the Silent Monk and felt the need for a sword. Many swords. Possibly with a full suit of armour and several thousand soldiers coming up behind.

He's feeling the same uncertain, defensive bristling now. Hop shoots a look behind him at the Buddha on the shelf, who's got a dishcloth flopped over his head, and feels something irrational bubble up in his chest.

-

He and Jason are sparring in the back, where they've cleared out an empty space amid the boxes and shelves, and Jason is flat on his back and he's just about to boast in his face when Jason leans back and groans: "Oh--Jesus, I forgot, I gotta go meet Liang at the dragon dance rehearsal."

Hop freezes. "The what?"

"The dragon dance, the big one they're having in Chinatown this year." Jason lifts his head, still sprawled out on the floor. "Didn't you see the flyers? They're everywhere."

"I saw the flyers." He stands back, folds his arms suspiciously. "Why is she part of the dragon dance?"

"Uh--they were posting online looking for volunteers and she thought it sounded cool." Jason looks completely bewildered, head tilted to one side. "It's completely legit, it's just a bunch of businesses and stuff getting together with the public library--"

"Fine," Hop huffs out irritably, "fine, it's fine. Back up on your feet, you're still not practicing enough with your left side."

That night, heading home, he almost bumps into a man heading past him on the street; he mutters an "excuse me" but the man doesn't even turn his head to acknowledge him. He stops to watch the man go, the line of his back straight and stiff, and he would swear on the half-empty bottle of _sanhua jiu_ under the kitchen sink that the man wasn't there a second ago.

-

"_Xīn nián kuài lè_," Wùjìng calls out as Hop bends to pick up his morning paper. The noodle shop owner's carrying a child's handmade costume in a dry cleaner's bag--a dragon dancer's outfit.

"_Xièxie nĭ_, thank you. Happy New Year's to you, too." Hop rubs the sleep out of his eyes, wincing at the stiffness in his back. Today he feels about ten thousand years old, tired and grumpy and fed up, and instinctively winces when Wùjìng's immensely adorable--and immensely _loud_\--daughter comes shrieking through the front door of the shop, clambering into the car parked in front. He makes a quick escape, waving goodbye and hurrying for the calm and quiet of his shop.

He unlocks the doors, turns on the lights, and heads into the back to make his tea. When he lights the incense and sits down with the Buddha figurine, looking down into its face, he finds he has nothing to offer--no thoughts, no memories, no wishes--for the first time he can remember.

"Sun Wukong," he says finally, aloud. The name sounds completely unfamiliar to his ears and he looks back down at the Buddha's face, as if seeking reassurance; the scent of agar and sandalwood fills the air.

The first firecracker goes off around five-thirty, while it's still light out, and Hop snorts loudly in the silence. Jason hasn't turned up and the store is empty, adding to the unreal feeling of the entire day. He dusts and sweeps with a vengeance, clutching furiously at the broom and tossing the garbage into the back dumpster. The washroom downstairs is cleaned out and mopped up, the windows are wiped clear, and everything on the shelves is rearranged into perfect order.

Yet another blast of fireworks rattles the windows, briefly lighting up the air, and music can faintly be heard through the open window.

Hop lets out a sigh, sagging. He props the broom up against the counter, pockets his keys and locks the door to his store behind him. The night air is calm, the sky clear, and in the distance he sees a burst of green stars in the sky streaking downwards with trails of smoke. The closer he gets to Beach Street, the more lanterns he sees strung up; kids are running around with sparklers, while parents watch on their porches and pass mugs of hot chocolate.

On Beach Street the police are hanging around near the fireworks, a patrol car parked nearby while they talk on their radios and sip their coffee. There's dancing going on near the end of the street and clusters of people sitting with plates and cups in hand, and tables stacked with red packets and hand-painted poetry, and laughter and singing and chatter everywhere.

Hop only gets a moment to stare around him, blinking as he shivers in the cold, and suddenly a roar goes up as a dragon's head rears above the crowd. There's a whirring of drums, a fast urgent beat, and the dragon spirals up into the air and plunges down with a whirl of streamers and flashing eyes. It slides up and down, twisting sinuously, coiling itself as the pole dancers step in time.

People are jostling to clear a path, whistling and hollering as the dancers move forward. Hop spies Wùjìng's daughter near the end, roaring like a dragon with her face painted and earning the biggest cheers, but can't catch a glimpse of Liang. The fireworks go off again and he's blinded for a moment, shielding his eyes and blinking away spots; it's too noisy here and it's freezing outside, he's being shoved and trampled on, he can't find Jason--

"_Wèi_, Lu Yan."

It's the man he bumped into on the street. There's some gray flecks in his hair and he's wearing a business suit, neatly tailored, but he smiles and Hop recognizes him right away.

There's a thousand things he wants to say, a thousand things he wants to do right there in the middle of the street--including but not limited to hauling him up by those expensive coat lapels and shaking him stupid--but the first thing that comes out of Hop's mouth is: "You arranged the dragon dance from the beginning, didn't you?"

"Mmm." Sun Wukong shrugs noncommittally, still smiling. "If all those flyers didn't work I was going to put a few dozen firecrackers on your roof."

Hop holds his head, shaking it back and forth. "You couldn't have just stopped by the store to say hello?"

"No," says Sun Wukong, laughing in a way that takes Hop cleanly apart into pieces. They just stand there for a while, staring at each other, and finally Hop gives up and lets the smile crack through. "Come with me, old man, we haven't shared a drink in thousands of years."

Eventually the pawn shop will be torn down for new buildings, and Jason Tripitikas will have a soapstone Buddha carving sitting on a shelf in his room--carefully handled and painstakingly dusted, always. That night two figures disappear into the crowd as the dragon weaves by, wreathed in sparklers and lantern-light and riots of bright colour, and heads onwards.


End file.
